Ideas &plus; Media

About Ideum

Ideum’s ability to see the whole picture allows us to create unique products and compelling interactive exhibits for Ideum’s ability to see the whole picture allows us to create unique products and compelling interactive exhibits for a wide range of clients and contexts. We focus on the visitor as we use immersive, digital tools like touch tables, video walls, projection mapping and other technology to tell stories and create immersive experiences.

History & Approach

First founded in California, Ideum is an 18-year-old interactive design firm now based in New Mexico. Ideum is the largest employer in scenic Corrales, just outside the growing Southwest hub of Albuquerque. The company was founded by Jim Spadaccini, former Director of Interactive Media at San Francisco’s Exploratorium.

We create meaningful experiences that use emerging technology. Our approach is to create exhibits that evoke wonder, awe, and surprise, but that also tell important stories about science, art, history, and culture that have a lasting impact. We are committed to creating visitor-centric interactive experiences of substance delivered in immersive and exciting ways.

Our multitouch tables and touch walls are practical implementations of recent advances in multiple areas of emerging technology. Our hardware products are built to be used in social environments where they encourage interaction and collaboration. We take pride in what we design and build, we focus on reliability and performance and build products that last.

We develop interactive, visitor-centered exhibits utilizing new and emerging technologies for museums, Fortune 500 companies, and other entities throughout North America and around the world. Our firm provides design services, custom software development, and audio-visual (A/V) exhibits. We design and develop ruggedized turnkey products for public spaces, and our multitouch tables and touch walls have been sold in more than 40 countries.

Unique

Ideum stands apart from many other interactive design firms because we build unique, standalone hardware products in addition to developing content and specialized software. Most design firms specialize in one or two of these areas; Ideum’s expertise in content development, hardware, and software means we understand the full spectrum of skills and components necessary for creating innovative and compelling installations. In addition, Ideum is an A/V dealer/distributor and has partnerships with 3M, Barco, BrightSign, Christie, Crestron, Intel, LG, and others.

Industrial Design & Product Development

Our Industrial Design group is responsible for incorporating the range of multitouch and display technologies used in our custom projects, tables, and displays, including motion sensors and other HCI and IOT devices. More broadly, the group has also designed and built a wide variety of enclosures, custom exhibitions, and unique installations for public spaces of all kinds.

In addition, Ideum has an active R&D group dedicated to investigating new input devices, electronics, sensors, software packages, and other emerging products and technologies. This group has recently produced Tangible Engine, an innovative object-recognition software package, and GestureWorks, a multitouch authoring software development kit (SDK). These versatile packages are core ingredients in our development of custom software solutions and are available to qualified purchasers of Ideum touch tables and touch walls. Ideum is currently developing an inclusive, gesture-based audio accessibility layer that allows visitors to explore content on touchtable-based exhibits.